Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I have watched many election campaigns but never have I see one that has been so subtly racist, except for possibly the candidacy of George Wallace. The Republican Vice President nominee Sara Palin at a recent speech so riled up her audience that there were calls of traitor and kill him, a reference to Obama along with the N word to a media person and the obvious comment to "sit down boy". What was Sara Palin's response to this? Nothing. To his credit, when it began to happen at a John McCain rally he diverted from the script to say that Obama was a good and decent man.The right wing pundits are using the anti muslim mantra against Obama, and race as a weapon against him. Sadly, this puts the truth to what black Americans have always known and stated; that middle class educated white America largely dismissed as black paranoia, that is that there is an undercurrent of racism in America and it is this racism that the extreme right are tapping into. The Sean Hannity's, Rush Limbaugh's, Bill O'Reilly's, Neil Cavuto's, Michael Savage's and Glenn Beck's of the world have tapped into race hatred, religious bigotry and every despicable prejudice that I thought America had overcome in an attempt to stop Obama from becoming the next American president.There are a number of the Republicans who have had the courage to step forward and oppose the McCain candidacy and support the Obama candidacy, they are the conservative intellectual elite Republican icons, David Brooks, George F. Will, Kathleen Parker and Christopher Buckley. These conservatives while not rabid Obama supporters have for various reasons abandoned the McCain campaign. These few people have restored my faith in the true cause of conservatism. That is the conservatism of a party not married to the religious right and the neocons but to principals of the founding fathers, of Madison and Hamilton.Palin supporters are overlooking the danger that she represents to the nation. Can we possibly trust the United States to an intellectual inferior, one without the depth and breadth of knowledge and ability to manage a crisis or dangers that face America and a world beset with a multitude of dangers and issues. Palin represents the danger that could possibly face America, destruction from within. How could the intellectual and moral standards have slipped so low? The fact is the John McCain is out of touch and that is the greatest danger.

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Former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell endorses Obama for president on Meet the Press. He criticized McCains choice for Vice President Sara Palin as, "...not qualifed because she's not ready to be president -- the primary role of the vice president ." He also criticized McCain's policy of useing the issue of Bill Ayers as a campaign issue. ""Sen. McCain says he’ s a washed-up old terrorist then why does he keep talking about him?"

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George F. Will , says of Palin "an avoidable Gamble"

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John Cleese on Fox

John Cleese on Palin

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David Brooks"Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness."

"Bush Strategist: McCain Knows He Put Country At Risk With Palin Pick" " Matthew Dowd, a prominent political consultant and chief strategist for George W. Bush's reelection campaign eviscerated John McCain... ...for his choice of Sarah Palin as vice president.Dowd proclaimed that, in his heart of hearts, McCain knew he put the country at risk with his VP choice and that he would "have to live" with that fact for the rest of his career."

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Recommended Books; Video LinkTruth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values"This book is, in essence, a compilation of the "Special Comments" portion of the program he hosts on television. In addition, however, he has added an introduction to each comment so the reader will know what inspired him to write and deliver the comment in the first place. Some of the introductions are very short, while some span several pages and contain a fair amount of information. This would be a wonderful read even without the introductions; however, with them it is fantastic.The book is well written; Olbermann has an obvious gift for words and the writing is partly amusing, partly sarcastic and always deadly serious. I suppose the comments would be better if they were spoken, however there are some of us who do not get his television station (in my case because the cable company chose that station alone as the only news channel to be made a "premium channel") and these are comments that should be preserved and read again and again.I doubt Olbermann's critics will take the time to read the book, which is a pity. This book will cause you to think, and whether or not you agree with the author, you will definitely look at the current political situation in a different light."-Frederick S. Goethel "wildcatcreekbooks" (Central Valley, CA) -

"The Anti-Federalist Luther Martin of Maryland is known to us—if he is known at all—as the wild man of the Constitutional Convention: a verbose, frequently drunken radical who annoyed the hell out of James Madison, George Washington, Gouverneur Morris, and the other giants responsible for the creation of the Constitution in Philadelphia that summer of 1787. In Bill Kauffman’s rollicking account of his turbulent life and times, Martin is still something of a fitfully charming reprobate, but he is also a prophetic voice, warning his heedless contemporaries and his amnesiac posterity that the Constitution, whatever its devisers’ intentions, would come to be used as a blueprint for centralized government and a militaristic foreign policy.In Martin’s view, the Constitution was the tool of a counterrevolution aimed at reducing the states to ciphers and at fortifying a national government whose powers to tax and coerce would be frightening. Martin delivered the most forceful and sustained attack on the Constitution ever levied—a critique that modern readers might find jarringly relevant. And Martin’s post-convention career, though clouded by drink and scandal, found him as defense counsel in two of the great trials of the age: the Senate trial of the impeached Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase and the treason trial of his friend Aaron Burr.Kauffman’s Luther Martin is a brilliant and passionate polemicist, a stubborn and admirable defender of a decentralized republic who fights for the principles of 1776 all the way to the last ditch and last drop. In remembering this forgotten founder, we remember also the principles that once animated many of the earliest—and many later—American patriots."

Army Spc. Jason E. von Zerneck, 33, of Charlotte, N.C.; assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 101st Cavalry Regiment, New York Army National Guard, Jamestown, N.Y.; died Oct. 2 of injuries sustained from a vehicle incident in Qara Bagh Karez, Afghanistan.

Army Sgt. William P. Rudd, 27, of Madisonville, Ky.; assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Ga.; died Oct. 5 of wounds sustained from enemy small arms fire while on a combat patrol in Mosul, Iraq.

Army Pfc. Scott G. Dimond, 39, of Franklin, N.H.; assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Regiment (Mountain), New Hampshire Army National Guard, Milford, N.H.; died Oct. 13 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device and his patrol was engaged in a small arms fire attack.

Background

I earned my BA Degree at Queens College CUNY, in Political Science, and MA from College of Staten Island CUNY, in Liberal Studies. PhM in Metaphysics, studying the Egyptian Mystery school and its effect on western thinking. My other interest are masonic history, western civilization, specifically ancient Rome through the renaissance. My other pursuit is Shotokan Karate, an interest that has consumed beginning in 1960. I hold a 8 degree black belt in Shotokan Karate from the World Traditional Karate Organization, WTKO. www.wtko.org I hold a 3rd degree in Iaido, Japanese sword art including a variety of martial arts weapons and close combat techniques.